Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Follow the Bouncing Ball: A Web Animation Project
This project is a fun way to try your hand at programming and expand your knowledge of web design. You will learn how to create some simple animations, and perform tests and make measurements to help you create more realistic-looking...
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Science Buddies: Programming Nanor Gs in a Virtual World
In this two week long project, you will design an assembly-language control program for the microprocessors of a colony of nano-organisms (NANORGs) in a virtual world. If you're up for a real programming challenge, this is the project...
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Science Buddies: Which Team Batting Statistic Predicts Run Production Best?
Here's a sports science project that shows you how to use correlation analysis to choose the best batting statistic for predicting run-scoring ability. You'll learn how to use a spreadsheet to measure correlations between two variables.
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Science Buddies: Baseball Bat Debate: What's Better, Wood or Aluminum?
Science and math abound in baseball. In this project, you can produce some interesting baseball statistics of your own and perhaps settle a long-standing debate. You'll set up experiments at your local playing field to find out which...
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Science Buddies: The Leaning Tower of Pasta
Here's a project for a budding architect or structural engineer. Can you make a strong, lightweight tower using only uncooked spaghetti and white glue? In this project, you'll learn about materials testing and apply what you learn to...
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Science Buddies: Nothing but Net: The Science of Shooting Hoops
Swish. What a great sound when you hit the perfect shot and get nothing but net. Here's a project to get you thinking about how you can make that perfect shot more often.
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Science Buddies: Frequency of Outcomes in a Small Number of Trials
People often draw conclusions from a small number of observations, but how easy is it to draw the wrong conclusion? Here is a simple project that shows the importance of making enough observations before making a prediction.
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Science Buddies: Extracting Onion Dna
In this project, you'll learn how to isolate DNA from onion cells, separating it from other cellular components in a manner that still preserves its structure and sequence. In the end, you'll have enough DNA to see with the unaided eye,...
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Science Buddies: Yeast Reproduction in Sugar Substitutes
There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh-baked bread to make your mouth water. As any baker can tell you, you can't bake bread without yeast. This project makes clever use of bread dough to measure yeast reproduction three different...
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Science Buddies: Earthworm Castings: Soil for Young Garden Plants
Everybody knows that worms are good for the soil, but not everybody knows why. Here's a project that investigates just one of the ways earthworms improve the earth.
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Science Buddies: Cryopreservation: Freezing Plant Tissues
Cryopreservation-storing seeds in ultra-cold liquid nitrogen-is one method for maintaining plant genetic stocks in seed banks. The purpose of this project is to observe the characteristics and outcomes of cryogenically frozen seedlings...
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Science Buddies: Planting Size vs. Depth
Plants have evolved many clever mechanisms to ensure that their seeds will wait for appropriate conditions before sprouting. Some may only germinate after a fire, others only after going through a cold spell. This project explores one...
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Science Buddies: Testing How Fashion Impacts the Behavior of Others Around Us
There's an old saying that "the clothes make the man" (or woman, we're quick to add nowadays). How true do you think this is? Here's a project with one approach for finding out.
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Science Buddies: Liquefaction & Seismic Activity
Earthquake damage can be intensified in areas that are subject to soil liquefaction. For example, in these areas, soil movement may cause foundations to collapse, while structures in nearby areas built on more stable soil or bedrock may...
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Science Buddies: Dice Probabilities
You're playing Monopoly with a friend, and you've already got Park Place and you really, really want to get Boardwalk. If you're on Pacific Avenue, what are the chances you'll reach your goal? Here's an easy project that will show you...
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Science Buddies: Solid Motor Rocket Propulsion
What does it take to launch a satellite to explore Mars, or a mission to the moon? This project has several possible variations for exploring the physics of rockets. This is rocket science.
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Science Buddies: The Birthday Paradox
This project shows how mathematical probability sometimes contradicts our intuition. Despite the fact that there are 365 days in a year, if you survey a random group of just 23 people there is a 50:50 chance that two of them will have...
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Science Buddies: Using the Soho to Determine the Rotation of the Sun
This project shows you how to use images from an orbiting observatory to measure how fast the Sun rotates.
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Science Buddies: Germ Invasion
Microbes are everywhere in our environment, but for the most part they escape our notice. This project shows you how to safely culture and study common bacteria from your everyday surroundings.
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Science Buddies: Bacterial Transformation Efficiency
Is it possible to take advantage of microorganism's sophisticated makeup, short doubling times and cheap growth media to mass produce medically and commercially useful proteins? This is possible with a few simple genetic manipulations....
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Science Buddies: Blas Ting Flu Viruses
Remember going to the doctor and getting vaccine shots? It's no fun getting poked with a needle, but fortunately, a vaccine gives you protection against a serious illness for years to come. This project will show you why.
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Science Buddies: Learning Your A, G, C's (And T, Too)
This is a project about the "molecular alphabet" of DNA. With just four "letters," it manages to keep track of the plan for an entire person, and keep a complete copy in nearly every cell. This project will help you start learning this...
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Science Buddies: The Design Process: Creating a Stronger Truss
This is an interesting project that explores which geometrical shapes make the strongest bridge truss structures. It is a good introduction to the engineering design process. You'll design three different trusses, and use online...
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Science Buddies: Rise to the Occasion: Investigating Yeast Fermentation
Did you ever wonder how yeast makes bread dough rise? This project will show you what yeast does to make this happen. You'll also investigate the conditions yeast needs to grow.